Looking for ways to create convincing rigid-body simulations without paying a packet for software? Use our guide to rigid bodies in Blender and do it for free!

Introduction

Blender's rigid-body simulation engine has been improved a lot over the recent years. Since Blender released 2.66, the Bullet Physics library has been integrated into the editor so we can use rigid-body simulations also outside of the game engine. It means simpler workflow and more flexibility in the simulation.

Now only mesh objects can be set as a rigid body, but we can use them as part of parent-child relationships, drivers and animation constraints . To create rigid bodies we can click on Rigid Body (in the physics tab) or use the Add Active/Passive buttons in the tools panel (on the left). On the left panel there are other useful options like calculate mass (use volume information to automatically calculate the mass of body) and copy from active button (copy setting from active object to selected).

Video

Cube setup part 1

Open Blender, select Default Cube and Scale (S key > 0,1), apply Scale (Crtl A > Scale) and add an array modifier (count=10, relative offset 1,5) Duplicate and move the array to create a pyramid. Apply array modifier, jump to the Edit Mode tab, select all vertex and separate them by their loose parts (P key). Select the first cube, open Rigid Body panel (on the left side) and click Add Active. Change collision shape to 'box' then click on Calculate Mass button and choose a material. (If you want to assign a mass by hand use Physic panel).

Cube pyramid

Cube setup part 2

Select all the cubes, then Shift + RMB on the first cube and hit copy from active button. Now all the cubes are set as rigid body objects with the same setting. If you click on play animation button on the timeline the pyramid will explode! Don't worry! It could be caused from a wrong origin point in the meshes (select all cubes and click on origin button > to geometry) or because some cubes intersect each other (move them). Add a Plane under the pyramid and click on Add Passive. Now click the play button; the cubes will fall down on the plane... congratulations this is a rigid body simulation.

(ID: 260940, pid: 0) Inogbox on Sat, 15 March 2014 12:36am Confuse on Sphere setup 2
"Now move the cursor to the animated flag and press 'I' ", where i should move my cursor ? and what the "animated flag" mean, is that mean animated checkbox on physics panel?